Do you want to be Transhuman?

You know how powerful software and robotics are, don't you? It's "superman" Up To Eleven.

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

@Jovian: I don't know; I've never heard a normal person wish that.

@Yej: You mean "not very"?

Frankly, being turned into disembodied consciousness with no capacity to love sounds like the very definition of Hell. The only mercy would be the oblivion that comes when the hardware stops working.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Who said you could not love? Or do you mean sex. One of those is possible. The other would be strange and, most likely, empty.

Please.

A multiplicity to transfer into once I'm finally tired of 'normal' life would be nice.

Or to become a spacecraft capable of voyaging to the stars.

edited 25th Mar '11 10:30:03 AM by pagad

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

If you have the tech to do Brain Uploading, getting the result to feel "love" is trivial. And I think most of us are thinking that the resulting minds would be connected to Matrix-like VR, which means you could make love under any circumstance you wanted.

edited 25th Mar '11 10:30:43 AM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Foucault's face in the sand requires an ocean to erase it. What makes you think you are part of that ocean?

Kill all math nerds

Agape is an abstract thing that I only know by analogy with eros, the love of a man and woman embraced in the reproductive act, and storge, the love that inspires the woman to inconvenience herself by putting a child to her breast.

Note the role of bodies in these loves. We have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in our bosoms, and I am rather happy that way.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

My grandfather has a fake heart that, for a time, pumped another mans blood. He loves and laughs. He smiles and frowns. He hates and dislikes. If you could download the human brain nothing would be lost. Your mind would not suddenly stop the process of caring for others. The urge to suckle a child may be loss without the proper hormones and hormone receptors.

Edit: also the Greek concept of love is about as valid as Freud.

edited 25th Mar '11 10:40:26 AM by TheDeadMansLife

Please.

Rottweiler: What about making bodies eternal, or at least for as long as you would want to prolong your existence?

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

Oh, definitely. I've always been into transhumanism. In fact, barring a major catastrophe, I think we're heading this way whether people like it or not. Also, I'm pretty sure that the whole Cybernetics Eat Your Soul thing is complete bullshit. Today, a lot of folks have received prosthetic limbs to help them move, and thousands of people struggling with Parkinson's have received neural implants.

The future looks bright. Dunno if I'll live to see it, but I know it'll happen.

edited 25th Mar '11 10:41:28 AM by Nimitz

Jagged Alliance 2 LP (Redux) (Closed!)

People are just afraid of ending up in a real-life version of a Michel Houellebecq novel.

Kill all math nerds

@Dead Man:

You can take my faith in Hellenism when you rip it from my cold dead heart.

@pagad:

Sure! I dare say it would take omnipotence to overturn entropy, though.

edited 25th Mar '11 10:47:53 AM by Rottweiler

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Cybernetics don't eat your soul, of course, but I've got to wonder what it does to your time...

But seriously, there's a few reasons I don't like some of those options:

• Brain Upload: Will that be the same me? I mean, I can't comprehend not existing, so if I suddenly have a critical existence failure, and they download a new me, then who's that? Not to mention, if you can upload data from the brain, someone will learn how to map it and more importantly, hack it. My brain is mine, and I don't need someone diving into it and maybe reprogramming it.
• Immortality: Meh, as great as it might seem at first to have an infinite existence, I found that when I have a lot of time on my hands I also have a lot of nothing to do, resulting in extreme boredom. That means when I do eventually get around to doing everything that there is do to, I'm left self-termination or waiting for more things to happen. I'd like my life to be like Portal, just long enough to get a lot of stuff done and enjoy myself while doing it, but short enough that I'm not padding existence.
• Pick your body: My main problem here is self-identity. I was born as myself and became who I am because of it. If I'm literally in a constant state of fluidity, I just can't see myself ever getting a base image of myself, I'll be forever growing up into someone else. Maybe with restrictions I wouldn't mind about this point so much, but it still bugs me.

That being said, robotic limbs and such are fair game, I can only see those helping humanity due to how practical they are.

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

@38

"I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice."

In seriousness tough. If you get bored in your free time you are trying way to hard.

Please.

Eh, nah, I'm just a person who likes to "do stuff". I feel good after being productive. Immortality just sort of removes any need to be productive anymore, which I'm more than sure I'll succumb to since I've already done that in less than seven weeks of summer break.

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

What's the problem? You do that anyway.

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

I have trouble understanding the fear of growing into someone else at times. It's happened to me and it's just what people do. Identities aren't by any means static. At other times I can understand it very well. I am me. I want me to be eternal. I am me and I am attached to me. I don't want to be something else because I am me. However the other side of me knows that this is not and cannot be so and this same part wants it to end eventually.

WHEE CONFLICT.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Not quite what I mean. This me will always be me with X years of past that will always define me. For better or for worse, my image is set as it is now and might change as I continue to live. I've matured into who I am. If I'm able to continually change, or if other people can, I think we'll always be in a sort of mental infancy as to our current alter ego. Like a sort of theme park version with no real depth.

edited 25th Mar '11 11:04:58 AM by Usht

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

There is something wrong with our ability to constantly change and therefore always be stuck in a sort of identity infancy? Could you explain this better. I don't understand.

edited 25th Mar '11 11:06:23 AM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Heh, this one would be more than happy to become a disembodied consciousness that needs body only as an avatar - something to interact with environment, no more.

But what creeps this one out is an idea of Hive Mind, joined consciousness and other things that erase individuality.

Oh, and strangely enough, this one does not want immortality. She'd prefer to have a time of death of her choosing, and it won't be "never".

edited 25th Mar '11 11:09:02 AM by Beholderess

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Hive mind is very creepy and yet I also want it. I would also like to just have it with one other person yet I don't. I mean...my consciousness would be stuck with this other person and I with theirs. Until we die. Actually...what happens when one of us dies in such a case? Will the shock cause them to die too? Will they get depressed? ???

edited 25th Mar '11 11:09:00 AM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Umm, this one remember reading a very disturbing tale about that. How two people were mind-linked, then one of them died and it turned out that people stay conscious after death even as their bodies disintegrate (shudders). Oh my, that was depressing

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Oh dear...that's almost as disturbing as the idea that it would just fuck up the other person amazingly bad...

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Yeah, I figured this idea would be hard to get across, but let's go for it anyway. Aondeug, think of a fictional character, like say Spider-man. He's been around a long time and he's still evolving as a character. Early on, he was defined by a few traits, being a young college guy trying to make his place in the world, having a strong sense of justice, and guilt over causing his uncle's death after playing around too much with his powers. That's a great slate for developing someone.

Now, years later, Spider-man has a lot more history. He's become witty over time, has a rather strong dislike for clones after running into them so many times, grown to be more confident thanks to both his actions and because of the supportive people around him. He's still Peter Parker with a Spider-man costume, but he has a history that has fleshed out who he is and allowed him to grow without ever actually being a real person.

By body hopping, we're killing that because you can easily change shape and shed any previous history. No only that, but you can also become whoever you want, meaning that while you might have an interesting base, there's nothing behind it beyond that initial view. You're essentially only as much as you have stuck around to be. I can see this working for some people, but by far and large, it's allows them to run too away too quickly from past mistakes and such, even if those mistakes would've resulted in them being a better, stronger person.

Is that a bit more clear?

EDIT: Hivemind is a big no no for me. I value individuality and singular creativity way too much for that.

edited 25th Mar '11 11:15:04 AM by Usht

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

I'm gonna say "no" to the Brain Uploading issue, due to the continuity of consciousness problem.

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!